lunedì 14 dicembre 2009

The division of the world into “the West and the rest” is a misrepresentation, writes Ales Debeljak. Cultural globalization is not the transplantation of western ideas and technologies across the planet, but the adaptation of these according to local requirements. Hybridity, the product of a longe durée, is at the heart of the contemporary western paradigm.

With reflection on the EU 2020 in full swing, Ann Mettler weighs into the debate with an analysis about the political economy of indicators, as well as concrete recommendations on targets for the EU’s new economic blueprint. “Innovating Indicators: Choosing the Right Targets for EU 2020” is a unique reflection on how to measure and evaluate societal progress and make the policy process more inclusive and meaningful to a broader number of people.Download the e-brief from hereAIDC WebSite Comparative Law News

This paper analyzes the ways in which jurors use everyday storytelling techniques in their deliberations. It begins by reviewing the literature on how jurors receive and process evidence, emphasizing narrative and storytelling. It then presents some new, qualitative linguistic data drawn from actual jury deliberations, which shed light on jurors' standards of evidence and proof, as well as on the persuasive tactics they use in dealing with each other. Although these data are limited, they provide an interesting basis for assessing existing ideas about jury evidence-processing and thinking more broadly about the strengths and weaknesses of the jury system.

For the 2010 German Studies Association meetingin Oakland,California, we will be convening a series of panels on matters legal.We envisage a broad set of topics, from the development of specific legal practices and cultures in Germany to the function of law in wider cultural fields; from theories of law and the emergence of the so-called Rechtstaat to the development of business law and legal integration in the nineteenth century. From the philosophy of law to the legal cultures and literatures that extend from medieval to modern periods, these panels are intended to foster an extended conversation on the law across humanities and social science disciplines. We encourage submissions from scholars in all aspects of the law, and are especially interested in both methodological and temporal breadth.

This paper considers the constitutional and political significance of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, in the context of fin-de-siècle Elizabethan rule, during which period the jurisdiction of the prerogative courts threatened to supersede that of the courts of common law. I examine juristic belief in the existence of an unwritten law, superior in authority to imperial edict: a theme which resonates throughout Titus, but which also underscores The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, which he was compiling in the 1590s. I analyse also the symbolic importance of ancient Rome to the development in England of a body of literature that might loosely be termed republican. The story of the destruction of Troy and its re-emergence in London as Troynovant is a literary device that was employed by Elizabethan writers as a means of establishing the ancient credentials of the English state and English common law.

Helle Porsdam, a member of AIDEL, in comparing Europe and the USA, from the standpoint of Law & Humanities, focuses on the following:

"Europeans have attempted for some time to develop a human rights talk and now European intellectuals are talking about the need to construct 'European narratives'. This book illustrates that these narratives will emphasize a political and cultural vision for a multi-ethnic and more cosmopolitan Europe. The narratives evolve around human rights, partly in hope that they might function as a cultural glue in an increasingly multi-ethnic Europe, and partly because they are intimately connected with that part of enlightenment thinking that sought to promote democracy and the rule of law. Helle Porsdam discusses the development of human rights as a discourse of atonement for Europeans - a discourse which has the potential to become a shared, transatlantic discourse. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be an invaluable research tool for postgraduate students and scholars within the fields of law, history, political science and international relations."

Part I lays out why incentives and audiences matter. We explain the idea of judicial audiences and how they shape the judiciary in different legal families. We provide a common framework for understanding what have been traditionally perceived as very different institutions, namely the so-called “career” judiciary and the “recognition” judiciary. This framework provides new insights into the profound changes judiciaries have been going through in many different jurisdictions across the world.
Part II considers the particular dynamics of internal and external audiences for judicial performance, using case studies from various judicial systems. In particular, we look at traditional civil law jurisdictions such as France, Italy and Japan where judicial activism has progressively made its way. We also compare the United States and Britain, examining recent British constitutional reforms in detail and speculating about the future consequences of the new institutional design. We argue that our framework provides a useful way of understanding the main forces shaping the recent changes in all these different jurisdictions, thus providing a common ground for analysis.

Ashgate has recently published the book “Risk Perception, Culture, and Legal Change. A Comparative Study on Food Safety in the Wake of the Mad Cow Crisis”. The study explores the reasons behind the different responses of Europe, Japan and the USA in dealing with BSE, one of the major food safety crises in recent years. Making reference to the most recent advances on risk perception that cognitive and social sciences, such as legal anthropology and sociology of law, have experimented with, the author examines the role that culture plays in addressing the process of legal change. Attention is focused on the regulative frameworks implemented to guarantee the safety of the food chain against the BSE menace and on the liability responses sketched to compensate the victims of mad cow disease, showing how both these elements have been influenced by the cultural context within which they are situated. The author, Matteo Ferrari, is a post-doc fellow in comparative private law at the Department of Legal Sciences of the University of Trento.

‘This book is a path-breaking and highly topical study of the cultural contexts of the regulation of safety’, David Nelken, Cardiff University, UK

‘Why have different nations reacted so diversely to “mad cow” disease? Ferrari’s answer is in fact a single, elegant solution to a host of long-standing theoretical puzzles in economics, political science, sociology, and law. His account of culture and risk will provoke debate and deepen insight in all these fields’, Dan Kahan, Yale Law School, USA

giovedì 26 novembre 2009

Article submissions are now being accepted forTransnational Legal Theory, a new quarterly journal. The journal publishes articles of (optimally) 10,000-15,000 words and book reviews of 1000-2500 words. Also considered for publication are “review essays”. The journal is refereed and employs a double-blind peer review procedure.

The objective of Transnational Legal Theory is to publish high-quality theoretical scholarship that addresses transnational dimensions of law and legal dimensions of transnational fields and activity. Central to Transnational Legal Theory’s mandate is publication of work that explores whether and how transnational contexts, forces and ideations affect debates within existing traditions or schools of legal thought. Similarly, the journal aspires to encourage scholars debating general theories about law to consider the relevance of transnational contexts and dimensions for their work. With respect to particular jurisprudence, the journal welcomes not only submissions that involve theoretical explorations of fields commonly constructed as transnational in nature (such as commercial law, maritime law, or cyberlaw) but also explorations of transnational aspects of fields less commonly understood in this way (for example, criminal law, family law, company law, tort law, evidence law, and so on). Submissions of work exploring process-oriented approaches to law as transnational (from transjurisdictional litigation to delocalized arbitration to multi-level governance) are also encouraged.

Equally central to Transnational Legal Theory’s mandate is theoretical work that explores fresh (or revived) understandings of international law and comparative law ‘beyond the state’ (and the interstate). The journal has a special interest in submissions that explore the interfaces, intersections, and mutual embeddedness of public international law, private international law, and comparative law, notably in terms of whether such inter-relationships are reshaping these sub-disciplines in directions that are, in important respects, transnational in nature. Other areas of interest for the journal include the interaction of systems or orders along such axes as the following examples: constitutional law theory on the reception of various forms of external law by states’ legal orders; jurisdictional theory on the external projection of states’ legal orders; public law theory on the evolution of regional legal orders; panstate religious normativity; and the theorization of law as “global” in preference or contradistinction to law as either international or transnational.

Legal theory is understood broadly to encompass a variety of inter- and subdisciplinary theoretical approaches to law or to law-like normativity, including, to name only some, philosophy of law, legal sociology, legal history, law and economics, and international relations theory.

If you wish to contribute a paper or discuss ideas for future articles, please contacttlteditorial@hartpub.co.ukor to submit a book reviewtltbookreviews@hartpub.co.uk. Full guidelines for contributors are availablehere.From Sean Donlan, Irish Society for Comparative LawAIDC WebSite Comparative Law News

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (The School of Advanced Study, University of London) has issued a Call for Papers for the WG Hart Legal Workshop 2010 on Comparative Perspectives on Constitutions: Theory and Practice (29 June- 01 July 2010). The Workshop:

will explore theoretical and empirical aspects of national constitutions (including instruments such as Basic Laws and ‘constitutional statutes’), regional constitutional instruments, and international instruments of a ‘constitutional’ nature. Particular emphasis will be placed on questions concerning the purposes of constitutions, the extent to which such conceptualisations are given expression in the drafting of constitutional texts, and the means by which methods, techniques and institutional innovations are traded across jurisdictions.

Proposals for papers or panels that fall within the framework of these themes are welcomed.The committee especially welcomes contributions from early career researchers and papers of a cross-disciplinary nature.

All papers will be posted on the workshop website. Subsequently, the organising committee intends to seek publication of a selection of these papers in more permanent form.

The XVIIIth International Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law is fast approaching (as is the deadline for early and slightly cheaper registration). The Congress is hosted by American University's Washington College of Law, the George Washington University Law School, and the Georgetown University Law Center. It takes place in Washington DC from 25 July to 1 August 2010.Italian Delegation Coordinator: prof. GambaroAIDC WebSite Comparative Law News

The idea behind this is to stimulate exchange of ideas and research, among younger scholars in the academy; and to encourage younger scholars in their work.

The papers at the 2008 Forum were on a very wide range of subjects, and this is a welcome fact, as they must mirror all the interests and present researches of participants. Also at the upcoming 2010 Forum papers may be on any legally relevant subject.

The papers can make use of any relevant approach; they can be quantitative or qualitative, formal, sociological, anthropological, historical, or economic.

The first step in applying is to submit an abstract of the proposed paper. We would like these to be no more than 2 pages. Tell us what you plan to do; lay out the major argument of the paper, say something about the methodology, and what you think will be the paperʹs contribution to scholarship.

This book aims to capture an exploratory approach to theorising the global legal order. Avoiding any brand loyalty to a particular academic perspective, it brings together scholars who contribute a variety of insights covering quite different topics and viewpoints. It sets itself the target of producing a distinctively legal theory of global phenomena, which is capable of illuminating the path of law as an academic discipline, as it confronts a bewildering array of novel situations and innovative ways of thinking about law. The broad base of perspectives found among the contributors, combined with a helpful commentary from the editors, makes the book an ideal Reader to introduce a subject that is becoming of increasing importance for academics, students and practitioners, in law and related fields.PUBLISHERHart PublishingRead the Table of ContentsAIDC WebSite Comparative Law News

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The Cardozo Electronic Law Bulletin

The Cardozo Law Bulletin is a peer-reviewed, English and Italian language journal concerned to provide an international forum for academic research exploring the threesholds of legal theory, judicial practice and public policy, where the use of a 'comparative law and literature' approach becomes crucial to the understanding of Law as a complex order.